Lancashire have shown their faith in the current squad following promotion to the top division by handing out new contracts to 15 of the squad. Evergreen Glenn Chapple has signed on for another year, Kyle Hogg, who was in impressive form with the ball during 2013 has extended his contractual stay for two more years, as has spinner and England hopeful Simon Kerrigan. The full list with contract length is as follows -
Chapple (1 yr), Hogg (2 yrs), Kerrigan (2 yrs), Newby (1 yr), Aganthangelou (1 yr), Horton (2 yrs), Lilley (2 yrs), Clark (2 yrs), Davies (2 yrs), Parry (2 yrs), Procter (2 yrs), Reece (2 yrs), Livingstone (1 year, first pro contract), and Smith (2 yrs).

Also, Northants have completed the signing of former player Graeme White on a two-year deal. While Leicestershire have confirmed pace bowler Ollie Freckingham has been rewarded for a promising season in 2013 with a new two-year contract.

Toby Radford, the former Middlesex and Sussex batsman, has joined Glamorgan as chief coach. It may not be widely known that he's the son of Brian Radford, the journalist and writer (with some interesting thoughts here on corruption in cricket - BBC News - Meet the Author: Brian Radford) and an old mate of my dad's from his own days in the newspaper business. Dad was always interested in how his mate's son was getting on and used to ask me about his progress. It didn't work out for him in county cricket, although five 50s in 14 matches wasn't too shabby.

Two games in and Onions yet to bowl for the Dolphins due to rain. Scotty Borthwick made a ton on debut for Northern District in sydney grade cricket.

England are in kind of a meh position with regards to spin bowlers now. Kerrigan is going to have to do a lot to regain any kind of trust from England. So once Swann goes and given Monty is pushing on it's gonna be interesting to say the least.

The other options at present aren't exactly great. Rafiq has looked decent but has struggled with injuries and his action in the last couple of years. Ravi Patel has done well for Middlesex but he's basically played 1/2 a season. But otherwise there haven't really been any others worthy of even mentioning and that is a massive worry.

With that in mind I was thinking about possible permutation says in 3 or 4 years time. I like the look of Borthwick as a batsman. His runs this season were excellent- tough wickets and high pressure situations. But it's one season. The same with Moeen Ali. They both need more consistent batting performances.

But if say down the line they were both churning out the runs England may be left in a situation where they had to resort to a Borthwick/Ali spin bowling attack.

Obviously that's a 5 year down the road path with a lot of ifs and buts. But the fact is the spin bowling talent coming through at the moment looks awful. England might be forced into something like the team above due to lack of alternative spin bowling options. Neither Ali or Borthwick are good enough bowlers at present and almost certainly neither will ever be test class spinners but if there is no-else in a few years time they may be forced down this route.

First division could be quite interesting next year. Durham will push close again, as will Warwks, Yorks, Middlesex and I think Somerset will bounce back from a disappointing season and do well. Especially with Petersen coming back and Compton seemingly not in Englands plans at the moment.

Durham are interesting. They ran very well in terms of injuries relative to other counties this past season with basically none for key players. They used as few players as any other county this past year(21 with Kent) and the fewest in the championship(18). They also had breakout/anomaly seasons by Borthwick and Stoneman with the bat which was hard to predict. The squad is thin but wasn't exposed this past season but the squad will roughly be the same kind of strength next, maybe a little weaker. ( They've Lost Will Smith who played 36/39 games but Benkenstein should be back. Couple of seamers gone but replaced by good academy players Arshad and Harrison.)

Their advantage is their seam bowling and the wicket at CLS. Onions and Rushworth if they are fit and available will win plenty of games over a season + good backup. The CLS wicket will nearly always produce a result and the point system rewards positive results. How they do is dependent on the availability of the seamers (who if fit are as good as it gets in county cricket) and whether two or three of the batsmen can cobble together a good season.

I'd still back Warwickshire for next season. They had an insane number of injuries this past year and still finished 4th. Players like Woakes and Chopra are gold mines because they aren't quite good enough for England yet dominate county cricket. They have others like Barker, Wright and Clarke who are very good county cricketers. Jeetan Patel is available for the whole season and is one of the better spinners. Javid and Evans have improved a lot.

Notts have said today they're gonna release Hales, Patel and probably Lumb for the IPL should they get a top tier ($400K+) bid. Their bowling isn't good enough to win the championship and Andre Adams is getting old and injury prone.

Middlesex and Lancashire are the two other teams with Durham and Warwickshire capable of winning the championship imo. Middlesex have good depth of bowlers and all relatively young even if their batting is questionable. Lancashire strengthened by Buttler and Jarvis have nice combo of old and young and good bowling depth and options.

Somerset are in transistion and have problems. Their older players (Tres, Kirby, Thomas) were average last year and the batting in particular is thin in places. Some very talented young allrounders/bowlers in C Overton, Meschede, Gregory, J Overton, Leach, Dockrell who will be good in the future but a bit too young and injury prone at present to be consistent.

My guess would be something like

Warwickshire, Durham, Lancashire, Middlesex, Yorkshire for the top 5 and tougher to judge the bottom four.

Guess most signficant is that draws in the championship are now 5 instead of 3 points and that the use of the heavy roller is at the discretion of the home team(they choose whether it is available or not) and it can only be used once per match per team.